October 20, 2015

Liberals accustomed to chuckling over the ideological rigor of the House GOP caucus won't want to hear this, but one of the foundations of the GOP's broad national success is a reasonable degree of ideological flexibility.

Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations. In states like Texas or South Carolina, where this agenda nicely complements a robust social conservatism, the GOP offers that up and wins with it. But in a Maryland or a New Jersey, the party of business manages to throw up candidates who either lack hard-edged socially conservative views or else successfully downplay them as irrelevant in the context of blue-state governance.

"Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations. In states like Texas or South Carolina, where this agenda nicely complements a robust social conservatism, the GOP offers that up and wins with it."

I am buying this. Just looking at the data (the numbers) bears this out.

I see 2 cross-currents though obscuring this fact. First, the Dems dominate the cultural/media wars. Gay marriage is a fait accompli. As is abortion. The major media are, indeed, Democratic operatives with bylines, so it doesn't feel like the GOP is winning the ground game.

Second, there is a large vocal segment of Conservative/tea party types (whom I respect) who direct their wrath less at the Leftists who cause most of the problems, and more at the Republicans who they feel are not trying hard enough to stop them.

My own view is that Dems, on the whole, have pretty much become economic socialists and cultural anarchists, and are the source of most our country's problems.

That pretty much describes why I hold my nose and vote Republican. The social conservatism mostly turns me off, but on economic issues and government spending the GOP is the party where candidates don't have to worship labor unions, trial lawyers and various other government-dependent monsters.

The Dems don't need to worry though, Republicans will screw it all up in the end like always. Possibly by selecting that "megalomaniacal reality TV" as their candidate, who may prove even more unappealing than Hillary to a majority of general election voters.

The elections are determined by people in the middle who can choose to identify with the rich and worry about the depredations of the poor or identify with the poor and worry about the depredations of the rich. Think about human nature and what people are more likely to do. The way most of us think about money, we worry about money flowing out of the public fisc into the hands of the masses more than we do about how private citizens are keeping most of the money they've taken the trouble to earn. We don't trust government raking it in and redistributing it. I'd like to, myself, but it's just not trustworthy enough.

Despite Yglesias' silly description of these voters, his point is a valid one--the GOP is a very diverse party and while that can hurt them in terms of uniting around a presidential candidate or congressional leadership, it does enable them to win in various parts of the country. Democrats were once like this--southern conservatives, union supporters, urban ethnics, internationalists and liberals, factory workers and farmers.

Today it seems the GOP has a lot more ideological flexibility than the Democrats--look how a moderate like Jim Webb is doing with his party. Conservative Democrats like Joe Manchin are an anomaly. Meanwhile, Republicans with views far to the left of their party on abortion or gay rights (e.g., Guiliani, Pataki, Whitman) were popular national figures. Is there really any Democratic equivalent?

The scientific centralized state (SCS) is going out of business because it has delivered already all that such a state might promise - universal education, social safety nets, and universal right to vote. The left always led while the SCS was rising and the right was just a brake to keep change from happening at French Revolution speed with a terror / imperialism outcome. But now the way forward is to decentralize, to legislate less - the right is leading and the left is braking.

But actual left is so conceited that it cannot accept the new reality so it says it is leading with gender-free bathrooms and prosecution of men who kiss or think at a university.

Meanwhile it ignores the actual difficult economic situation caused by its policies of borrowing and over regulating while raving about its compassion- and it ignores the increase in murders in big cities which has followed adoption of its police policiesand it ignores the murders of Jews which has followed its adoption of anti-Semitism- and it ignores the connection between the migration now going on and the do-nothing foreign policy of Obama- and it supports a huge immigration into America while at the same time telling Americans not to have children there are too many Americans- and it supports new promises to spend while borrowing to continue old the spending for old promises- and it ignores the utter contempt Putin is displaying for Obama

"Tim McGuire, of course Republicans should represent its constituents. The problem for the Republicans is that they have all become a bunch of dumb hillbillies."

Underneath the sneering there might be a point to make here. However, I'm not sure you know what a "hillbilly" is or whether you're aware that actual hillbillies usually don't vote, and when they do they tend to vote for Democrats as they are more dependent on state assistance than average citizens. The GOP electorate on average is wealthier and better educated than the Democratic electorate. But I suppose that fact is inconvenient for someone who wants to write them off as ignorant poor goobers.

"Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations."

"But instead of a dialogue about how to obtain that success, Democrats are currently engaged in a slightly bizarre bidding war between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders to see whether Congress in 2017 will reject a legislative agenda that is somewhat to the left of Obama's or drastically to its left."

Sums up the irrelevancy of the Bernie candidacy.

Unless we go to a system where the President just makes up random unilateral powers for himself, this crop of Democrats are promising things they have no way of doing. That would be an interesting question for some debate moderator to bring up.

"Senator/Secretary- how do you propose to get 2/3'rd of the Senate and the House to vote for your 'Boo Citizens United' Admendment when you name Republicans as your biggest enemies"?

By "dumb hillbillies" he means that Republican voters ain't sephistcated and edumencated such as he is. Many of them didn't go to far in skool lernin and so they ain't been what you call exposed to the ideas presented in the various, stoodies courses. If they had been they would know that they are the cause of all the oppression being suffered by so many.

I know I've been hankerin for a dog's age to spend $30,000 - $50,000 a year to go to one of them there private colleges so I can gets me some of them stoodies courses and learn about this new fangled yes means yes sex. That sounds pretty wild. Yesirre! Yeaaaah!

You mean Republicans represent their constituents?!? Great Scott! That cannot be allowed!

Some do. A lot seem to represent the Chamber of Commerce.

I wish somebody would take the GOP on a retreat and remind them that they are the party of the market, not of business. Would resolve a lot of problems.

Second, there is a large vocal segment of Conservative/tea party types (whom I respect) who direct their wrath less at the Leftists who cause most of the problems, and more at the Republicans who they feel are not trying hard enough to stop them.

It's like the New Left of the 60's and 2004-2008. You attack and replace your pseudo-allies first before really going after your foes.

Today it seems the GOP has a lot more ideological flexibility than the Democrats--look how a moderate like Jim Webb is doing with his party.

Webb is not a moderate. When he was in the Senate, he voted fairly lockstep Democrat on almost all issues. He talks a good game but he is not a moderate in the slightest.

-- Yes. That's a thing you have to remember; the extreme folks on the left [and some of the extreme ones on the right], are so used to indulging in their daily X-minutes of hate a day, that they really think Republicans sit around smoking cigars making deals on how to exploit minorities to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

After talking to people on the left, and listening to their posts, I'm convinced they have, at best, a child's understanding of politics, with Republicans playing the role of Skeletor, Megatron and Cobra Commander.

And then once I spend northwards of $150,000 and four years of my life on a stoodies degree I can be an unpaid intern for all kinds of folks. Democratical politicians, HR departments of large, stoopid corporations, left-wing NGOs, science fiction publishing companies. And after a year or two of that, if I kisses me enough ass, I might even start getting paid a pittance. (A pittance is what you call a small wage.)

Now, note, that there are a lot of people on the left who DON'T have these stupid fantasies of what conservatives think and do. They're just not the vocal ones you have to deal with on the Internet or in public.

"Senator/Secretary- how do you propose to get 2/3'rd of the Senate and the House to vote for your 'Boo Citizens United' Admendment when you name Republicans as your biggest enemies"?

In fairness, the equivalent of this should be asked of the GOP candidates as well. Promises of cutting taxes by $10 trillion over a decade or converting Medicare into vouchers when not even a majority of Republicans will back that (and the Dems may take the Senate back) sounds a lot like dreamland wishes to give everyone free college somehow. Unless you're actually running on a platform of gridlock (which in some ways isn't a bad thing) then I'd like to hear how you'll get enough people outside your party to vote your agenda.

they really think Republicans sit around smoking cigars making deals on how to exploit minorities to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.

Oh yes, I can't find a clip, but that was a scene in The American President. The evil, cigar smoking Republican was played by Richard Dreyfuss. I was surprised though that they didn't put him in a top hat and cape and give him a handlebar mustache to twirl. Also, they cut the scene where he tied Annette Bening to the railroad tracks.

When you are talking about "rich people paying taxes," the question really is who you think will have the best judgment re-investing their money; "the rich people" themselves or the government bureaucracies working for your elected no-good so-and-so's.

Their hard-earned money is going to support plenty of Republicans, via grant money, deductions, subsidies and give-aways locally... Look into it.

Their doing it nationally too. The National Chamber of Congress isn't the small business persons friend. It exists to facilitate the flow of tax dollars from the middle class to connected corporations.

One big difference between Republicans and Democrats is that we realize that the establishment does not have the average constituents interests in mind when governing while the Democrat party voter still doesn't realize that it is also the party of the rich.

Climate. Retirement.How long will we continue to subsidize our wealthy old, at the expense of the country's future. We need substance. We get an aging blog mistress, with tenure, feeding her retired husband, but producing what exactly?

"The elections are determined by people in the middle who can choose to identify with the rich and worry about the depredations of the poor or identify with the poor and worry about the depredations of the rich"

Yeah, in like, 1968. Now they're determined by the poor and the rich. I don't know if Matty is trolling his own side or the Republicans, but Free Stuff! ensures a very high floor on Democrat electoral fortunes. Throw in a little BLM and a dash of WoW, and you're golden. Matt can't admit that of course, even to himself.

Survey after survey show that there are more Republican millionaires than Democrat. However, they are generally in the 1 to 20 million dollars bracket. From then on up there are more Democrat multi-millionaires than there are Republican until above a quarter billion they are almost exclusively Democrat, and the total amount of money just dwarfs the estimated Republican aggregate.

Democrat, and the total amount of money just dwarfs the estimated Republican aggregate.

Right, in order to get more Republicans into the top ten on the wealth list they count The same Koch Bros money twice and the Wal Mart fortune three times. If they split the Koch Bros money, they wouldn't even make the list.

Ann Althouse said...The elections are determined by people in the middle who can choose to identify with the rich and worry about the depredations of the poor or identify with the poor and worry about the depredations of the rich.

Elections are determined by people who vote for someone who's 'likeable' or they want to have a beer with or they want to blow, or vote against someone with an absence of these traits.

I think Althouse is mostly right on this. Many, if not most, of the commentators here are political junkies. That's a good thing -- but it skews their view of the bigger picture.

The bigger picture (I think) is that the masses, including Dem and GOP voters want the same thing: safe streets, good schools, jobs, a vacation every now and then, Monday Night Football, cheeseburgers and beer.

The ends desired are similar -- the means to achieve those ends are where the political differences lie. The Dems are quite comfortable with having high-paying government jobs, and are oblivious to the fact that the taxes from the private sector pay for these jobs.

The GOP voters -- the party of small businessmen-- are much more astute about how hard it is to make a payroll, comply with government regs, avoid getting sued by trial attorneys, etc, etc.

Anyway, I do buy the notion that there are millions of not-so-highly-informed swing voters, who don't know who Ted Cruz is, don't particularly like Hillary, but don't know why, don't blog on Althouse, don't read RealClearPolitics, stay in the center, and swing between Dem and GOP each presidential election. I support this idea with the uncontrovertible fact that Reagan won 59% of the vote in 1984 and Dole won only 41% of the vote in 1996, which likely means that a chunk of the same folks voted for both Reagan and Clinton.

Democrats seem to think if Hillary wins the presidency that they are in charge of everything, when nothing could be further from the truth. The senate and especially the house are firmly in control of the GOP.

I actually like divided government, so that neither party can harm the country with their stupid policies.

Every two weeks (withholding) and additional taxes on my wifes earnings every quarter, and I have a property tax bill on my house right now that has to be paid by the end of the year, and of course every time I buy something. Oh, and once a year taxes on our vehicles. So practically never.

First Hillary must be destroyed, then the democrats must be destroyed - hat tip to Cato the Elder - then the Republicans have to be destroyed. That is the problem, few can see what is really going on, that both parties are raping them and the country.

One solution: As soon as someone expresses a desire for political office that person should be immediately disqualified from holding office.

Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations

Why a plethora of nannies of course. You can't be a proper plutocrat without having a plethora of nannies.

OK, you got me. I get paid outrageous amounts of money supervising the secret slave labor needed to man the diamond farms. Oh, and my hobby, oppressing the poor. I wear a monocle and used to have a handlebar mustache, but I twirled it off.

Have you considered that not everyone fits into your neat little categories? That life is actually kind of messy and nobody fits in little boxes. Here is a "productive worker" and here is an "exploiter."

Seriously, how do you determine if something is productive or not? Have you ever ran a business? Worked in a trade and supervised other trades people? Have you even ever done a Costs to Benefits study? In fact, have you ever actually met a "working man?"

How do you propose to equitably divide the produce of the economy. Are you proposing to eliminate capital? If so how are you going to decide which projects are worthy of support and how are you going to assign resources?

You know, the guy I mentioned who wanted to eliminate waste and duplication at least had the start of a plan. He felt that computers could be used to overcome the problems communism encounters with efficient allocation of resources. With computers and networks everyone could make their preferences known sans the need for cash and the government would be able to analyze those preferences and therefore there would be no toilet paper shortages and supermarkets would be full of the food people want (except healthy of course, current food preferences are the result of evil corporation marketing.)

I've got time to kill. The plumber won't be here for another hour or so and so the day is pretty much shot since by the time he finishes with installing the water heater there won't be any point of going into work.

"The elections are determined by people in the middle who can choose to identify with the rich and worry about the depredations of the poor or identify with the poor and worry about the depredations of the rich . . . we worry about money flowing out of the public fisc into the hands of the masses more than we do about how private citizens are keeping most of the money they've taken the trouble to earn. We don't trust government raking it in and redistributing it"

This used to be conventional poli sci wisdom. But several things changed: social/entitlement spending rose as % of budget, tax cuts helped turn bottom 50%, not just the poor, into net recipients, most gov spending was increasingly paid for by top quintile(s) only, and "starving the beast" actually meant feeding it with deficit spending. The old middle-class calculation doesn't apply the same way anymore.

We, we, we: who are these we? Plenty of people rightly calculate that they get to keep "most of the money they've taken the trouble to earn" while counting on redistribution to send more their way. Middle-class economic insecurity is likely to raise demand for Other People's Money. Hillary! and Bernie are counting on O's failures to boost that demand.

Will religion be permitted? Certainly cigarettes and liquor and recreational drugs will need to be eliminated. Perhaps weak beer might be permitted to the "working man." But he mustn't overdo it!

Professional sports are unproductive, so they must go. The "working man" will join a local sports collective. After all, it is better to participate in sports than simply watch them. And if someone can no longer participate in sports, well perhaps its euphemism time.

TV and movies are problematic. Time spent watching them is time not spent "producing." But they are effective mediums for "informing" the "working man." So, mindless entertainment? No! Uplifting programming meant to make the "working man" more "productive" and supportive of "THE STATE?" YES, YES, YES! A hundred times YES!

One more post that had great potential for insightful comments from the diverse and savvy Althouse crowd - spoiled by a threadbombing jerk. Got about a third of the way through the comments, then checked to see if the pigeon troll had kept it up. Yep, she posted about a third of all comments on this thread, and was pretty much a jerk in each and every comment.

Professor, just curious, do you let this happen in your classes? I know you try to give everyone their say, but do you allow them to abuse that privilege in class, as well as on your own blog?

Note that I seldom comment, but for me, the comments of your diverse readership is the main draw to your blog. I'm that "lurker" who is in the middle politically that is using your blog as one of a number of places to learn, weigh and judge the various political and social arguments of the day. You specifically referred to people such as me in one of your posts. I'll probably tune out your blog for a while.

Mr. Fabulous, Mary's posts always get deleted, as you can see they have been. Sometimes just takes a while. Don't know why she can't simply be banned but I assume it's some limitation of the blogspot software.

Oh, and progressive corruption. You cannot realistically support social policies that are logically founded on the belief in intrinsic or exceptional human value and simultaneously debase human life. Just one of the many degenerative paradoxes found in progressive liberal ideology and the pro-choice cult.

We see all of these stories about how badly the government does things. VA is a disaster. EPA pollutes. IRS is corrupt. The police kill innocents. Obamacare exchanges are dying and its entering its, sadly, predictable death spiral.

And they KEEP wanting to give a government that has shown no ability to properly manage a bowel movement more power. What the heck? It'd be like giving your drunken 17 year old son a Ferrari to teach him a lesson for wrecking his Jaguar.

I used to take heart from stories like this. They gave me hope that there's a future for our country. But after the last presidential election, I am convinced that the fix is in. The Democrats have learned how to steal the national elections without getting caught. There nominee will win again this time, unless the margin is something unbelievable like 80 to 20 in favor of a Republican.

What I take from the article is that the GOP has a long game and the Dems do not have a long game, and over time, the GOP will grind it out and dominate. Even if the GOP doesn't win in 2016, they will still eventually dominate if the Dems can't figure out a winning long game.

They don't. The represent the best gerrymandering money can buy. It's no coincidence that the government is made dysfunctional by the same majority party that's ingenious at watering down and deflecting the most popular views of the country.

1) Remember the 'States voting to eliminate Electoral College' campaign? That's gone.2) Oh, States have the right to choose their electors for President by ways other than popular vote. I doubt that would actually happen, but given the expansive view of power that the Democrats have been using at the Federal level over the last few years, I could see it. And there was talk amongst Floridian Republican legislatures about doing just that in 2000 after Gore challenged the voting results.